July 27, 2005

Appropriations Season: Updates from Capitol Hill

EPA

Yesterday afternoon, House and Senate conferees completed work on a $26.3 billion Interior appropriations bill for FY 2006.

Appropriators were faced with their usual budget quandary of staying within this year's budget allocation, while also securing funds for their respective priorities. In order to achieve both, conferees were forced to trim a half a percentage point from each account in the bill. As a result, the measure will cut $194 million from the Agency's total budget, a slight decrease that is nonetheless higher than President Bush's $7.5 billion EPA budget request.

Despite this general cut, funding for the EPA's Office of Environmental Education has been fully restored to last year's level of $9 million-the figure originally included in the House Interior bill. This is a remarkable success for the environmental education field.

The measure has now been sent to both chambers of Congress and is, in fact, expected to arrive on the President's desk by the end of the week. Once the bill receives Mr. Bush's signature, the funding levels it sets out will become public law.